The Londonderry High boys’ tennis team pushed its season record up to 2-0 last Friday, April 11, by thumping the visiting Spaulding High Red Raiders of Rochester by a 6-3 tally in Londonderry.
The Lancers snared victories in four of the six singles contests and then put the win to bed by claiming two of the three doubles contests.
“The match started with some beautiful, warm, sunny weather, and as expected, my captains made record time taking the first three points, with Ryan (Broderick) being only two points shy of a Golden Match. He lost only two points in the whole match and one was on match point,” said new LHS coach Janice Tracey.
Rain came before the match was over, but the hosting Lancers had the victory tucked away before too long.
Broderick snagged his 8-0 shutout win at first singles, Tim Court pulled off the same feat at second singles, and Matt McKinney made it a clean sweep by blanking his opponent at three singles. Cam Letalien then gave the hosts a 4-0 lead by knocking off his pesky Spaulding opponent by a 9-7 tally.
Dante Abruzzese and Nate Peabody were then bested by their Red Raider opponents, but the Londonderry doubles tandems of Court and McKinney and Broderick and Letalien each snared 8-1 wins to make the match score 6-2 in the hosts’ favor.
The Lancer contingent was back in action Monday when it traveled to the state capital to play the Concord High Crimson Tide.
The team put forth a gutsy performance against the host Tide team in windy conditions, but wound up dropping a 5-4 decision to Concord to slip to 2-1 on the young campaign.
Singles wins were notched by Broderick (8-4), Court (8-1), and McKinney (8-1), but the Crimson Tide snagged victories in the fourth through sixth singles positions to send the match to doubles with the score knotted up at 3-3.
The doubles tandem of McKinney and Court fought its way to a 9-8 (8-6) tiebreaker win, but Concord claimed victories in the other two doubles match-ups.
The LHS duo of Letalien and Broderick also went all the way to a tiebreaker, but in the end that duo fell by an 8-9 (2-7) tally.